Tree Trouble

My favorite tree is dying.  According to the Tree Guy - it's dying because it is old, doesn't get enough sun and was planted too close to the house. (That tree has to be at least as old as I am.)  I admire this tree. It is a regal looking pine that towers over my two- story house by at least 500 feet..  In the winter it catches snow on its layered branches, looks like a greeting card and shelters dozens of birds and squirrels. In the Spring it becomes a piney scented apartment building loaded with bird and insect nests.  In the Fall it drops hundreds of pine cones and stands on a blanket of pine needles.

The tree started to die a few years ago.  The low hanging branches that I used to duck under failed to produce needles - except at the very end of each branch.  Self-appointed hairdresser to the tree, I would take my trusted saw and give it a trim.  Branches would fall.  Old vacated nests would drop to the ground.  I would clean it all up and declare it "much better".  My husband would grumble and haul the branches off to the dump while I tried to scrub pine sap from my hands.  (Actually I smelled like a bottle of Pine Sol).  This clean-up exercise went on for several summers.  I was so sure I was ahead of what ever was affecting my tree that I never stopped to consider that I might be wasting my time.

Two years ago a pair of robins decided to build their nest in one of the remaining low hanging branches. This particular branch was about three feet from a window in my family room.  All day, every day, for three weeks, Mr. Robin, fulfilling his mission to protect and defend, would dive bomb the window - trying desperately to kill his reflection.  At times he was able to grasp onto the outside sill and tap tap tap at the window, screeching and flapping his wings in a wasted effort to get that "other bird" to go away. I put up newspaper. It didn't stop. I taped black plastic. It didn't stop him.  I "soaped" the window using a bar of Dove - and that didn't stop him either.  When the eggs hatched and the babies appeared he split his time between grocery shopping and enemy hunting.  He must have done well at both because, in time, the babies flew away and the nest was abandoned. I cut down the branch.

Today the Tree Guy told us there is a hawk nest waaaaaaay near the top of the tree.  He strongly suggested that we cut the tree down next week before the hawks settle in, lay eggs, and declare us the enemy. "That little dog of yours could disappear," he noted.  "Tree's got go." I whined, "But I love that tree..."
""Yea," he said, "things get old and they die. Served it's purpose."

Thank goodness I have no idea what my purpose is....I can stick around for awhile longer even if my branches aren't quite what they used to be.  I think.




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